The Digital Fix: Film

Peppermint Candy & Instant Swamp in April/May

Third Window Films have announced the following UK DVD releases from current favourites Lee Chang-dong and Miki Satoshi. Details to follow.

Peppermint Candy - Shown in reverse chronological order, Peppermint Candy is the tale of a solitary man's painful growth in life set against the back drop of nearly three decades of Korean history. A distraught and weathered man, Yong-ho (Sol Kyung-gu) stands on the rails of a train track staring oncoming death in the face. Through divided sequences we retrace the steps that brought him to this place and this state of mind. From his failed marriage and unsuccessful career, to his first love and his traumatizing experience in the army, we are shown all of the elements that went into the psychological demise of a broken man.

From Lee Chang-dong (Green Fish, Oasis, Secret Sunshine).

Available to own on April 26th. Features include:

NTSC, Anamorphic Widescreen

Korean 5.1 audio

Removable English subtitles

47 minute &#8216;Making Of&#8217;

Theatrical trailer

Instant Swamp - After being forced to resign from her publishing company job when her magazine goes out of circulation, office worker Haname Jinchoge (Kumiko Aso) stumbles upon the name of her real father-Noburo Jinchoge. Flustered, she tries to confront her mother (Keiko Matsuzaka), but she had recently been rushed to the hospital after falling in a pond while searching for kappa. Eventually it's confirmed, and Haname decides to visit her father (Morio Kazama), who happens to be the storekeeper at an odd antiquities shop called Light Bulb Co. However, she's initially doubtful, and keeps her relation to him a secret.

Haname becomes fascinated with the various oddities and charm of Light Bulb Co., and being closer to her father makes her decide to become a shopkeeper herself. Customers are hard to come by, but she listens to her dad's strange advice-like running the faucet whenever life is happy-and gains the support of a punk rocker named Gus (Ryo Kase). One day her father offers to sell her the key to his warehouse for 1 million yen to fund his next trip, which she excitedly agrees to without thinking. However, when she discovers a shocking fact about Light Bulb Co. she chucks the key away in disgust. She later realizes that she's been stubborn not telling Noburo he was her dad, but by the time she runs back to meet him he's already gone. Eventually Haname and Gus decide to find out what treasures are hidden away in the warehouse she inherited.